News Brief

Aug. 19, 2013Kansas City, MO |
By: Barnett/AP

Cameron Attorney

A state disciplinary commission has rejected a Cameron lawyer's ethics complaint against a northern Missouri judge.
Attorney Michelle Puckett-Burkhead had accused Livingston County Circuit Judge Brent Elliott of destroying documents in two criminal cases and threatening a county clerk with arrest. Such complaints are typically confidential. Puckett-Burkhead disclosed her petition at a March hearing in the case of Mark Woodworth, the Chillicothe man facing a third murder trial after the state Supreme Court threw out his most recent conviction. She is one of two Woodworth defense lawyers. Elliott was an opposing attorney in a juvenile court hearing in which Woodworth was certified to stand trial an adult. A Kansas City attorney representing Elliott recently confirmed that the state's Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline cleared Elliott.